Unfortunately I can't get the FLV download script to run, so I'm not able to find out what their settings generally are.. I'm trying to write a video jukebox for my site, using one of the FLV flash players at http://hotscripts.com , considering I'm not a php/sql guru its going pretty well, I just have to finish a few pages and it'll be ready.

But I'm trying to get the "better looking than YouTube" without going overboard with my settings.. so basically trying to nail the bitrate, resolution etc. Most of my clips are 16x9 and I'm working along 444x240 currently (unfortunately I can't directly compare this to YT as they don't support 16x9, but their 4x3 res is 425x350.. which isn't true 4x3 anyway! my 4x3 would be around 444x333.. naturally!) so I'm using 300-350kbit for the video stream and 64kbit stereo for the audio (Its mainly live/promo music videos.. having a bad audio stream wouldn't be good!).

Just to be cunning i'm also offering 600px width 1mbit h264 downloads alongside the videos, to give the whole "did you like the stream? grab the high quality version then!" so people get the best of both worlds.

How are my bitrates/resolutions sounding.. in the UK (my "target demographic" as a lot of the videos are local bands, altho i do european/us bands too) most people on broadband tend to have at least 1mbit now I'd estimate, as most DSL/cable companies have done free upgrades and the like, I don't think I know anyone on a half meg anymore. Thus the streaming factor shouldn't be a problem.

I host with dreamhost.com so I have 60gb space/1.6tb transfer spread across my whole site, I'm happy for 1tb of transfer a month to go on the video downloads, and probably start with 20x 2-4min clips and grow from there.

Thanks guys!

(i've been doing the site for a few years, but moved hosts a few times, mainly just had .wmv/.mov clips to download from a forum set as opposed to a proper GUI frontend which is what I'm doing now, also with better equipment than before, I'm trying to push better quality clips.)

I tried youtube and google video and both were extremely disappointing. I asked myself why put something I am proud of on these sites then have it look like crap. So I discovered putfile.com with no recompression, free, up to 25mb upload, no limit of file uploads. Look at this site and see what you think. You can look at one of my files on the site at http://media.putfile.com/Gulf-Shore-...-Cape-San-Blas

I used windows media encoder 9 (free download), 750kbs on the video stream, video size was 480x320. There are alot of folks here that know alot more about preparing video for the web than I do, so maybe someone will chime in.

your trailer looks very nice! Would you mind sharing with us what the size (or bitrate) of the Flash video is, and also whether you used the encoder that ships with Flash 8 (I assume you did, from what you wrote) or a third-party encoder, such as the one offered by ON2?

I have used QuickTime so far, but with more people viewing my downloadable videos, I get more and more feedback from Windows users that have trouble with my files, so I think I'll look into Flash as an alternative.

I used the Flash exporter that ships After Effects 7's since I do not have Flash MX. My memory is hazy but the settings were probably close to: 15fps (sic--the most important part), 640x352, 400kbps video and 80kbps audio. The trailer clocked in at 2MB for 29s, so that means an average bit rate of 557kbps. Reasonable, in my opinion.

You can tell I do not care about dial-up users. Get with the times already.